Right now there are over 600,000,000 working firearms in this country. Registered & non-registered.
Two guns for every man, woman, and child that takes a breath today in these United States of America.

That's not an accident.

It' also not an accident that guns are becoming easier and easier to obtain and use. Regardless of conceal carry restrictions.

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And EVERY American that lives in this vast frontier called America is already just a captive.

A war captive that is now being stripped-of any capitalist value that it once possessed.

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Yet with all of this available firepower, this once GREAT country has already been taken over by a foreign enemy. It's name is multinational corporation. And they didn't have to fire a single shot to win.

We will soon do that for them.

We, as American citizens, we now have the firepower, the freedom, and soon the opportunity to blow each others' fucking heads off.

Which we will gladly do as soon as the electricity is off for any extended period of over 4 or 5 days.

Or, in the next presidential election the Red team decides the Blue team cheated...or vise versa. Just like is happening today in Thailand. Only our demise will be much more violent & widespread.

The war was certainly televised but we were captive. Neutralized while we merely observed.
TV. Oh you beautiful wasteland.

600 is low side . texas is 80x2 alone [star]
i usually peg it 1 billion guns. this may seem too high. but each year more and more are 'aquired'
the old ones get put aside but are still there.
Very few will hand in a gun for destruction. men dont think that way [and many women]

I got married at 25 and with kid on way the hardest thing i did was sell the gun rack.
mi carbines.303's, kar98;s and a beautiful missouri pd choked pump action [brass plaque]
those i sold are still there maybe unused but i upgraded many , rebore excthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karabiner_98k
the 98k;s i threw in 100 german 7.92.rounds. lovely machining. what else from Mauser Jagdwaffen GmbH
the germans know guns.
The main armament of the M1A1 and M1A2 is the M256A1 120 mm smoothbore gun, designed by Rheinmetall AG of Germany, manufactured under license in the United States by Watervliet Arsenal, New York.

As an Australian, I have no understanding of this inclination to 'bear arms'. Most of we Australians, if we have guns at all, have rifles to hunt prey, kill prey and then eat the prey. Some Americans are also this way, but the others seek to shoot targets, symbolic of human torsos, with hand guns and that I do not understand.

If Congress had actually solicited bids a tax payers union could have outbid them with ease.

Now corporate america will be able to stay inefficient and moribound until reality catches up with them. They have no idea what they've actually acquired. The problem is that it could be decades until they fail and God only knows what happens to people in the meantime.

cladking wrote:Corporate America bought the country for mere pennies on the dollar.

If Congress had actually solicited bids a tax payers union could have outbid them with ease.

Now corporate america will be able to stay inefficient and moribound until reality catches up with them. They have no idea what they've actually acquired. The problem is that it could be decades until they fail and God only knows what happens to people in the meantime.

I appreciate that this is an American-centric board, however, Capitalism is a global issue and not merely an American one alone. Multi-national corporations, and not merely Corporate America is buying the world for a dime to use and abuse as they see fit. Many of us see it happening and don't know what to do about it; in any kind of meaningful way that is.

I would argue that Capitalism can only be 'controlled' if it is that the corporate legal entity which operates as an individual allowing it to engage in contractual obligations of itself were accountable to criminal law as well as contract law.

cladking wrote:
I appreciate that this is an American-centric board, however, Capitalism is a global issue and not merely an American one alone. Multi-national corporations, and not merely Corporate America is buying the world for a dime to use and abuse as they see fit. Many of us see it happening and don't know what to do about it; in any kind of meaningful way that is.

I would argue that Capitalism can only be 'controlled' if it is that the corporate legal entity which operates as an individual allowing it to engage in contractual obligations of itself were accountable to criminal law as well as contract law.

Anywhere corporations have to compete their excesses are self correcting because
they will go out of business. This isn't the same thing as in America where companies
are intentionally ruined for business or financial reasons. There is competition left in
a few countries like India and China but in much of the world government has simply
excluded any possibility of competition.

There are laws on the books against most of the shennanigans going on but government
isn't enforcing them because corporations own government.

Much of the cause of this is the culture of greed that was spawned when taxes on the
wealthy were virtually eliminated in the '80's. There's now a sense that anything that
nets millions of dollars is "good" even if it rediuces total wealth or destroys companies
and products. CEO's steal from their customers by destroying quality preparatory to
shuttering the company and moving the jobs elsewhere. Rather than regulate busi-
ness the agencies that should be protecting us are exascerbating the problems by enac-
ting their own legislation against anything that might burn coal or produce energy.

This is going on in many places and is related to the self loathing of many educated peo-
ple spawned by the belief that their ancestors were evil. So everyone is grabbing what-
ever they can off the corpse of what was once a vibrant economy geared to making the
best mousetrap at the lowest price. Now it's a race to the bottom as product after pro-
duct is destroyed and ever more wealth is shunted to the top by a government acquired
in a hostile takeover.

You are merely proving the claim that many people see the abuses of Capitalism but don't know what to do about it in any kind of meaningful way.

Making Corporations accountable to criminal law has not been tried however. Govt. have allowed only contractual law to make a corporation accountable and even then, only through litigation, which is too often expensive and time consuming. Otherwise, individuals rely on ineffective and poorly funded regulatory bodies metering out fines for transgressions which are meaningless because the cost of ignoring the regulation is cheap in comparison to the profits attracted by the abuse of law.

I appreciate that this is an American-centric board, however, Capitalism is a global issue and not merely an American one alone. Multi-national corporations, and not merely Corporate America is buying the world for a dime to use and abuse as they see fit. Many of us see it happening and don't know what to do about it; in any kind of meaningful way that is.

I would argue that Capitalism can only be 'controlled' if it is that the corporate legal entity which operates as an individual allowing it to engage in contractual obligations of itself were accountable to criminal law as well as contract law.

I...I am sorry that this appears to be an American-centric board. I believe you are right. As for myself I think I speak too loudly and far too often.

I LOVE the input from other voices in other lands. I think the owner or owners of this board may be located in London.

My opinion - You are correct - Capitalism is a global issue and not merely an American one alone.

Matter of fact I think you are well spoken and you are correct in your complete insight.

I hate being wet! Especially in rising sea-water, surrounded by dead pelicans and polar bears.

Private gun ownership, it seems to me, is one of America's lesser problems. Capitalism is the big one, especially since they've grafted it onto Christianity. Xenophobic, homophobic, deaf, dumb, bigoted and illiterate muscular Christianity.
(That must have been some hairy operation!*)

It's a global problem, in that American corporate capitalism got loose and crawled all over the planet. The English gentlemen-adventurers kind was bad enough, but this kind is truly deadly. It's mobile, translatable, adaptable and transplantable. Like a plague, it decimates populations, corrupts governments and devastates landscapes, then moves on.

Irrespective of your cynicism, it is the case that food and water rights are the next big issue to affect all humanity over the next one hundred years resulting in dire desperation that will see civil uprisings... as is already starting to happen. Empty bellies and a parched mouth will, as has always been the case, lead to political instability and war. We humans shall quite literally decimate ourselves, and if we don't, Nature will through pestilence and disease.

Neither outcome is a bad thing... We need less humans on Earth.

My concern is the amount of accumulated knowledge that will be lost in the process. Still, I am equally consoled by our drive to accumulate knowledge, so that what is lost will eventually be regained and further added to.